I genuinely don't think things will change all that much. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Trump, but I doubt this is the apocalypse. The president has pretty limited power, and I doubt Congress will approve banning Muslims or building a wall. I also don't believe the 50,000,000 people who voted for him are racists and bigots, They see problems with other aspects of America, for example the economy, and think that Trump is the best person to fix it. While his current appointments are worrisome, I wish Trump the best. He'll be our president in January, we're stuck with his decisions for 4 years so I hope he makes good ones.
I didn't come here to argue politics, so I won't make another post like this. Not meaning to upset anyone, just trying to offer some words of comfort as well as my opinion on the matter.
The biggest problem I had with the Arbiters in the campaign was that they were competing with the Void Ray. I feel as though if they included another subsection of "Flying Spellcaster" or something to that effect, with the Nerazim having the Oracle, Khalai Arbiter, and perhaps a Purifier/Tal'darim Variant the Arbiter would have had more reasonable competition, Besides, I don't think I would classify the Arbiter as an "assault ship" anyways.
Somewhat related to the topic at hand, What were your favorite units in general? Not for their usefulness or power necessarily, but just whichever ones you had the most fun using, in both SC1 and SC2?
I had a lot of fun with Dark Archons in both games, and it's the reason I play Vorazun in Co-op.
The Broodlord is probably my favorite new unit in SC2, I really liked the Ascendants in the campaign, but I just couldn't pass up on Dark Archons.
For a 7 year old game, Starcraft is still getting plenty of new content and maintaining a fairly stable playerbase, everytime I log on the number that pops up is always around 20,000 people in channels and 5,000-10,000 games being played.
Kinda ironic that a thread about mapster being dead is listed as an "Active thread" on the front page :P
All in was a lot harder than Salvation in my opinion, kinda disappointing when the stakes of All in were significantly lower... But neither came close to the hell that was holdout mission in the epilogue... I found the last two epilogue missions to be fairly challenging on Brutal, Im not sure if the missions were actually, hard, or having to play my off races, or I'm just bad, or any combination of those three.
Wow, a very nice and detailed guide! I find that I agree on most of your assesment. A general trend I noticed was that Blizzard seemed to get better with the upgrades as time went on, with a fair number of low use upgrades in WOL to a very low number of low use upgrades in LOTV. I personally enjoyed WOL's campaign the most so that is in no way indicative of what I think of the campaigns as a whole.
The only Minor disagreement I had was that you seem to underestimate the power of the Wrathwalker's high damage, even though it's single target, you can compensate with the Ascendant and High Templar, and to a lesser extent the Vanguard. While those do not come close to matching the AOE power of the Colossus or the Reaver, I still think the Wrathwalker is a great choice, and the Robotic Siege was one of the units I had the most difficulty deciding, as all the options are very good.
Reconsidering the LOTV units I've noticed a trend with the factions, fairly well fitting with their lore.
Nerazim were more stealthy and specialist units, relying on good control to manipulate their power
Purifiers had some of the most durable units and focused less on the damage output.
Tal'darim had some of the highest damaging units, emphasizing the brute force nature of the faction.
Overall, great analysis and I will definitely refer to this later as I work on improving underused units.
That could be an interesting way to differentiate the two units. But if I intend to utilize the Broodlord, Guardian, and Devourer I'm unsure of what should morph from what.
I just tried out your mod, SoulFilcher. At the moment I have only taken a look at the Tal'darim and Infested terran, but later I intend to try the rest. (Side note but I think the Skytalon may be a little too good at killing mineral lines) I do like the idea behind it and I intend to play with it some more a little later
Firebats being anti-structure units could be a very interesting idea, perhaps renaming them Arsonists aswell.
I think I could enhance the Wraith's raiding aspect and making it more of a single target AA unit whereas the viking with the Ripwave Missiles is more AOE AA.
However decreasing the cost, removing the Tech Lab Requirement and perhaps very slightly increasing ground damage to perhaps 11 and adding a bonus to light units could make it a more raid focused unit. Making all of these changes could make the Wraith rather strong though so it will take some experimenting.
I personally find the Brood Lord much more fun than the Guardian was, but maybe that's just me. I wouldn't be opposed to replacing the corrupter with the devourer though.
I'm not terribly concerned with the spectre's stun, as I am making a custom campaign and units will be more spread out. But if it proves to be problematic I'm not opposed to adding a slight delay, and perhaps increasing the cooldown or Energy cost.
HERC: HERCs were an entirely separate unit from Hercules transports, and served as a front line infantry, it was in the LOTV beta and assets for it still exist in the editor. I do believe Blizzard was right to remove the unit for it's overlap with the Hellion.
Firebats: I noticed a very large overlap with the Hellion and it seems Pr0nogo agrees, and with the introduction of the Hellbat, taking up the advantage the firebat had of being tankier than the hellion, and with Perdition Turrets being able to take the defensive role of a firebat in a bunker, I think the firebat would take significant changes, but I am unsure where to start.
Ghost/Spectre: I do intend to make this faction dependent, (Ex: Dominion - Ghost, Rebel groups - Spectre)
Vulture: I have considered increasing the sight range and movement speed of the unit to perhaps make it a viable scouting option.
Predators: I agree with both of your assessments of the unit, it both overlaps with the Hellbat and is too expensive for what it gives.
Goliaths: I think leaving out the upgrade to let them attack both, will help to make them more specialized as Terran's ground to air unit.
Diamondbacks: I've always viewed them as heavy assault vultures, which makes them strange to me because im not sure what aspect to focus on. I do agree that their cost was a bit high, but the unit had quite good damage and health. And with blizzard's changes to the cyclone making it the mech anti-armor choice for Terran, I'm unsure as to what to do with the Diamondback
Wraiths: I've considered adding damage to light units on their ground attack to perhaps make them better at picking off small units, but im not sure this will fix anything. While yes, the wraith does perform both of the tasks the viking does without a form switch, but the wraith couldn't perform anti air or anti ground as well as the viking can.
Medivacs: I am currently considering removing the medivac and perhaps replacing them with the Special Ops Dropship, granting it the ability to cloak. But I am unsure of the power of cloakable drops.
Science Vessels: Science Vessels felt very much like nothing more than Medivacs for Mechs, as DrSuperEvil stated. Perhaps increasing the damage of Irradiate and granting it the Defensive matrix ability will make it a more versatile choice.
Zerg:
I agree with much of DrSuperEvil's assessment of the Zerg Strains, however I do intend on adding upgrades for the Zergling similar to what Zagara has in Coop.
Mutalisk/Corruptor: I've readded the corruptor, giving it the ability to morph into a broodlord once more and Vipers can be morphed from larvae, like multiplayer, making for no use for the Mutalisk strains.
Hydralisk: I do agree this was one of the more interesting choices in HOTS, and I intend to keep it that way, making an upgrade in the Hydralisk Den, leaving it up to the player to decide, much like the other strain upgrades.
Roaches: I found the vile roach strain to be quite useful as the debuff they provided also slowed attack speed and was not reliant on a timer as the corpser was. But I intend to keep both options available for research.
Swarm Host: I think I will be sticking with Blizzard's changes to the swarm host in the redesign, removing the strains.
Ultralisk: I agree with your ideas on the Ultralisk.
I decided to have the virophage morph from an infestor as it is the source of infestation, i figured I'd help the infestor live up to it's name. I am also considering removing that ability in favor of just allowing the infestor to infest a command center, like a brood war Queen, as a feel creating a structure in the enemy base is quite a bit of setup. Nydus worm strains might be interesting, however seeing as the standard worm spawns creep I'd have to create another buff for the second strain.
Protoss:
The intention is for the Protoss to have seperate factions. For example if you are playing the Tal'darim Campaign, you will be able to train Blood Hunters, however if you are playing the Khalai Campaign you will be able to train Avengers
In light of Blizzard's announcement that they're redesigning many of the multiplayer units, I began to think about some of the units that were campaign exclusive, specifically Tal'darim units, as my current project focuses on the Tal'darim, however I am also curious on the community's thoughts on other units from the campaigns, such as:
Terran: Spectres, HERCs, Vultures, Goliaths, Diamondbacks, Predators, Wraiths, Hercules, and Science Vessels.
I have questions such as if you think they can co-exist with available units, what their niche is and any changes you purpose to differentiate them from similar units.
Zerg: any thoughts you may have on the idea of strains being available to research, (Ex, you can chose to research Swarmlings or Raptor Zerglings at the spawning pool) and also the possibility for Infestors being able to morph into virophages to create infested Terran buildings.
Protoss: I have a plan to separate the Protoss by factions, potentially having each faction available to play as at some point.
First I'd like to say a quick thank you to HockleBerry who told me about this campaign. :)
Odyssey follows Captain Jared Harsh of the Federation of Warfare in the Kardyan Sector of the Milky Way. Created by CooperHawkesOdyssey and can be found here:
Terrain: Very well done terrain, excellent doodad placement adds a lot of life to the maps.
Difficulty: The difficulty varies throughout the campaign but overall I felt it maintained a healthy difficulty, not a cakewalk, but not impossible either. The Unmanned Combat Mechs in Mission 3 felt very unfair with only Marines and medics at my disposal, but other than that well balanced.
Mission Types: A good mix of fixed force, holdout and Destroy things missions.
Gameplay: Overall a fun experience, (Except for those unmanned combat mechs, I'll have nightmares for weeks), I enjoyed the extra abilities and heroes added to the game. Unique and interesting mechanics such as Scan Canceling to prevent your base from being bombarded and taking cover behind barriers to reduce damage you take. A grievance I had with the gameplay was the lack of tech, though as this campaign is still in development this could be resolved in later maps.
Story: Excellent story, truly the best of my experience with this campaign. Interesting characters and unique plot line left me wanting to know more. Backstory being delivered through the tips system was, in my opinion a good and unique thing that I intend to use in my maps :P. I can't say a whole lot more without delving into spoilers which I'm trying to avoid.
Overall a very well done campaign and I look forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold as CooperHawkesOdyssey creates more
Regarding the maps, I think most people agree, I've been watching Jayborino's playthrough of Insurrection (Great youtuber as I'm sure you know :P) and his biggest complaint seems to be that 90% of the missions are destroy everything. At the same time, I personally felt that starcraft 2 had way too many "Get to this point fast or you lose!".
A concern I have with adding all the units in, is that, for example the Firebat and Hellion's roles overlap quite a bit and I only ever saw people using one or the other in WOL.
I think there are several units that could use some buffs, (Diamondback, Wraith, PREDATOR, Corpser Strain Roaches, Creeper Strain Swarm Hosts, Noxius Ultralisks to name some I thought of off the top of my head) But I also want to know what other units you think should be fixed.
Not entirely on topic but I've never understood how everyone is fucked if Kerrigan dies, Supposedly the Keystone absorbed the energy Kerrigan held as the Queen of blades and Narud used that to revive Amon, so if she dies before she gets deinfested, No energy for Amon to be resurrected right?
Back on topic, I'm open to the idea of the UED having taken over instead, none of the pre-campaign is set in stone. The UED might in fact fit better, as I have toyed with the idea of the Protectorate using UED Overmind research to control Zerg Broods. Any way things go though Mengsk dies, Cause fuck Mengsk. :P
I do like the idea of DuGalle facing off against infested Stukov, knowing he caused that to happen to him. The reason I was aiming to kill off pretty much everyone is so that I could start anew while keeping Broodwar and WOL as history basically and I didn't like Amon as a villain very much, so I tried to cut him out. My scope perhaps was a bit large, but that's what I came here for
0
What abilities do you think a Tal'darim Oracle would have to differentiate it from the Nerazim one?
0
I genuinely don't think things will change all that much. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Trump, but I doubt this is the apocalypse. The president has pretty limited power, and I doubt Congress will approve banning Muslims or building a wall. I also don't believe the 50,000,000 people who voted for him are racists and bigots, They see problems with other aspects of America, for example the economy, and think that Trump is the best person to fix it. While his current appointments are worrisome, I wish Trump the best. He'll be our president in January, we're stuck with his decisions for 4 years so I hope he makes good ones.
I didn't come here to argue politics, so I won't make another post like this. Not meaning to upset anyone, just trying to offer some words of comfort as well as my opinion on the matter.
0
The biggest problem I had with the Arbiters in the campaign was that they were competing with the Void Ray. I feel as though if they included another subsection of "Flying Spellcaster" or something to that effect, with the Nerazim having the Oracle, Khalai Arbiter, and perhaps a Purifier/Tal'darim Variant the Arbiter would have had more reasonable competition, Besides, I don't think I would classify the Arbiter as an "assault ship" anyways.
0
Somewhat related to the topic at hand, What were your favorite units in general? Not for their usefulness or power necessarily, but just whichever ones you had the most fun using, in both SC1 and SC2?
I had a lot of fun with Dark Archons in both games, and it's the reason I play Vorazun in Co-op. The Broodlord is probably my favorite new unit in SC2, I really liked the Ascendants in the campaign, but I just couldn't pass up on Dark Archons.
0
For a 7 year old game, Starcraft is still getting plenty of new content and maintaining a fairly stable playerbase, everytime I log on the number that pops up is always around 20,000 people in channels and 5,000-10,000 games being played.
Kinda ironic that a thread about mapster being dead is listed as an "Active thread" on the front page :P
0
All in was a lot harder than Salvation in my opinion, kinda disappointing when the stakes of All in were significantly lower... But neither came close to the hell that was holdout mission in the epilogue... I found the last two epilogue missions to be fairly challenging on Brutal, Im not sure if the missions were actually, hard, or having to play my off races, or I'm just bad, or any combination of those three.
0
Wow, a very nice and detailed guide! I find that I agree on most of your assesment. A general trend I noticed was that Blizzard seemed to get better with the upgrades as time went on, with a fair number of low use upgrades in WOL to a very low number of low use upgrades in LOTV. I personally enjoyed WOL's campaign the most so that is in no way indicative of what I think of the campaigns as a whole.
The only Minor disagreement I had was that you seem to underestimate the power of the Wrathwalker's high damage, even though it's single target, you can compensate with the Ascendant and High Templar, and to a lesser extent the Vanguard. While those do not come close to matching the AOE power of the Colossus or the Reaver, I still think the Wrathwalker is a great choice, and the Robotic Siege was one of the units I had the most difficulty deciding, as all the options are very good.
Reconsidering the LOTV units I've noticed a trend with the factions, fairly well fitting with their lore. Nerazim were more stealthy and specialist units, relying on good control to manipulate their power Purifiers had some of the most durable units and focused less on the damage output. Tal'darim had some of the highest damaging units, emphasizing the brute force nature of the faction.
Overall, great analysis and I will definitely refer to this later as I work on improving underused units.
0
That could be an interesting way to differentiate the two units. But if I intend to utilize the Broodlord, Guardian, and Devourer I'm unsure of what should morph from what.
0
I just tried out your mod, SoulFilcher. At the moment I have only taken a look at the Tal'darim and Infested terran, but later I intend to try the rest. (Side note but I think the Skytalon may be a little too good at killing mineral lines) I do like the idea behind it and I intend to play with it some more a little later
Firebats being anti-structure units could be a very interesting idea, perhaps renaming them Arsonists aswell.
I think I could enhance the Wraith's raiding aspect and making it more of a single target AA unit whereas the viking with the Ripwave Missiles is more AOE AA. However decreasing the cost, removing the Tech Lab Requirement and perhaps very slightly increasing ground damage to perhaps 11 and adding a bonus to light units could make it a more raid focused unit. Making all of these changes could make the Wraith rather strong though so it will take some experimenting.
I personally find the Brood Lord much more fun than the Guardian was, but maybe that's just me. I wouldn't be opposed to replacing the corrupter with the devourer though.
I'm not terribly concerned with the spectre's stun, as I am making a custom campaign and units will be more spread out. But if it proves to be problematic I'm not opposed to adding a slight delay, and perhaps increasing the cooldown or Energy cost.
0
I appreciate the feedback!
Terran:
HERC: HERCs were an entirely separate unit from Hercules transports, and served as a front line infantry, it was in the LOTV beta and assets for it still exist in the editor. I do believe Blizzard was right to remove the unit for it's overlap with the Hellion.
Firebats: I noticed a very large overlap with the Hellion and it seems Pr0nogo agrees, and with the introduction of the Hellbat, taking up the advantage the firebat had of being tankier than the hellion, and with Perdition Turrets being able to take the defensive role of a firebat in a bunker, I think the firebat would take significant changes, but I am unsure where to start.
Ghost/Spectre: I do intend to make this faction dependent, (Ex: Dominion - Ghost, Rebel groups - Spectre)
Vulture: I have considered increasing the sight range and movement speed of the unit to perhaps make it a viable scouting option.
Predators: I agree with both of your assessments of the unit, it both overlaps with the Hellbat and is too expensive for what it gives.
Goliaths: I think leaving out the upgrade to let them attack both, will help to make them more specialized as Terran's ground to air unit.
Diamondbacks: I've always viewed them as heavy assault vultures, which makes them strange to me because im not sure what aspect to focus on. I do agree that their cost was a bit high, but the unit had quite good damage and health. And with blizzard's changes to the cyclone making it the mech anti-armor choice for Terran, I'm unsure as to what to do with the Diamondback
Wraiths: I've considered adding damage to light units on their ground attack to perhaps make them better at picking off small units, but im not sure this will fix anything. While yes, the wraith does perform both of the tasks the viking does without a form switch, but the wraith couldn't perform anti air or anti ground as well as the viking can.
Medivacs: I am currently considering removing the medivac and perhaps replacing them with the Special Ops Dropship, granting it the ability to cloak. But I am unsure of the power of cloakable drops.
Science Vessels: Science Vessels felt very much like nothing more than Medivacs for Mechs, as DrSuperEvil stated. Perhaps increasing the damage of Irradiate and granting it the Defensive matrix ability will make it a more versatile choice.
Zerg:
I agree with much of DrSuperEvil's assessment of the Zerg Strains, however I do intend on adding upgrades for the Zergling similar to what Zagara has in Coop.
Mutalisk/Corruptor: I've readded the corruptor, giving it the ability to morph into a broodlord once more and Vipers can be morphed from larvae, like multiplayer, making for no use for the Mutalisk strains.
Hydralisk: I do agree this was one of the more interesting choices in HOTS, and I intend to keep it that way, making an upgrade in the Hydralisk Den, leaving it up to the player to decide, much like the other strain upgrades.
Roaches: I found the vile roach strain to be quite useful as the debuff they provided also slowed attack speed and was not reliant on a timer as the corpser was. But I intend to keep both options available for research.
Swarm Host: I think I will be sticking with Blizzard's changes to the swarm host in the redesign, removing the strains.
Ultralisk: I agree with your ideas on the Ultralisk.
I decided to have the virophage morph from an infestor as it is the source of infestation, i figured I'd help the infestor live up to it's name. I am also considering removing that ability in favor of just allowing the infestor to infest a command center, like a brood war Queen, as a feel creating a structure in the enemy base is quite a bit of setup. Nydus worm strains might be interesting, however seeing as the standard worm spawns creep I'd have to create another buff for the second strain.
Protoss: The intention is for the Protoss to have seperate factions. For example if you are playing the Tal'darim Campaign, you will be able to train Blood Hunters, however if you are playing the Khalai Campaign you will be able to train Avengers
Thanks, again for your feedback and ideas!
0
In light of Blizzard's announcement that they're redesigning many of the multiplayer units, I began to think about some of the units that were campaign exclusive, specifically Tal'darim units, as my current project focuses on the Tal'darim, however I am also curious on the community's thoughts on other units from the campaigns, such as:
Terran: Spectres, HERCs, Vultures, Goliaths, Diamondbacks, Predators, Wraiths, Hercules, and Science Vessels. I have questions such as if you think they can co-exist with available units, what their niche is and any changes you purpose to differentiate them from similar units.
Zerg: any thoughts you may have on the idea of strains being available to research, (Ex, you can chose to research Swarmlings or Raptor Zerglings at the spawning pool) and also the possibility for Infestors being able to morph into virophages to create infested Terran buildings.
Protoss: I have a plan to separate the Protoss by factions, potentially having each faction available to play as at some point.
0
First I'd like to say a quick thank you to HockleBerry who told me about this campaign. :)
Odyssey follows Captain Jared Harsh of the Federation of Warfare in the Kardyan Sector of the Milky Way. Created by CooperHawkesOdyssey and can be found here:
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/starcraft-2-odyssey-campaign/
Terrain: Very well done terrain, excellent doodad placement adds a lot of life to the maps.
Difficulty: The difficulty varies throughout the campaign but overall I felt it maintained a healthy difficulty, not a cakewalk, but not impossible either. The Unmanned Combat Mechs in Mission 3 felt very unfair with only Marines and medics at my disposal, but other than that well balanced.
Mission Types: A good mix of fixed force, holdout and Destroy things missions.
Gameplay: Overall a fun experience, (Except for those unmanned combat mechs, I'll have nightmares for weeks), I enjoyed the extra abilities and heroes added to the game. Unique and interesting mechanics such as Scan Canceling to prevent your base from being bombarded and taking cover behind barriers to reduce damage you take. A grievance I had with the gameplay was the lack of tech, though as this campaign is still in development this could be resolved in later maps.
Story: Excellent story, truly the best of my experience with this campaign. Interesting characters and unique plot line left me wanting to know more. Backstory being delivered through the tips system was, in my opinion a good and unique thing that I intend to use in my maps :P. I can't say a whole lot more without delving into spoilers which I'm trying to avoid.
Overall a very well done campaign and I look forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold as CooperHawkesOdyssey creates more
0
That looks really good! I was pretty drawn to the massive wall of text for the lore, I must say :P
Shadow of the Xel'naga is one I've been meaning to play for a while,
And I have seen that, granted I did a quick skim through for the most part, a more thorough read couldn't hurt.
Thank you for the suggestions!
0
Regarding the maps, I think most people agree, I've been watching Jayborino's playthrough of Insurrection (Great youtuber as I'm sure you know :P) and his biggest complaint seems to be that 90% of the missions are destroy everything. At the same time, I personally felt that starcraft 2 had way too many "Get to this point fast or you lose!".
A concern I have with adding all the units in, is that, for example the Firebat and Hellion's roles overlap quite a bit and I only ever saw people using one or the other in WOL.
I think there are several units that could use some buffs, (Diamondback, Wraith, PREDATOR, Corpser Strain Roaches, Creeper Strain Swarm Hosts, Noxius Ultralisks to name some I thought of off the top of my head) But I also want to know what other units you think should be fixed.
0
Not entirely on topic but I've never understood how everyone is fucked if Kerrigan dies, Supposedly the Keystone absorbed the energy Kerrigan held as the Queen of blades and Narud used that to revive Amon, so if she dies before she gets deinfested, No energy for Amon to be resurrected right?
Back on topic, I'm open to the idea of the UED having taken over instead, none of the pre-campaign is set in stone. The UED might in fact fit better, as I have toyed with the idea of the Protectorate using UED Overmind research to control Zerg Broods. Any way things go though Mengsk dies, Cause fuck Mengsk. :P I do like the idea of DuGalle facing off against infested Stukov, knowing he caused that to happen to him. The reason I was aiming to kill off pretty much everyone is so that I could start anew while keeping Broodwar and WOL as history basically and I didn't like Amon as a villain very much, so I tried to cut him out. My scope perhaps was a bit large, but that's what I came here for
Thank you for the feedback :)